


Separation Anxiety

by Patchouli (lifelesslyndsey)



Series: How To Teach An Old Dog New Tricks [9]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Adoption, Child Abandonment, Darcy Lewis Back Story, F/M, History, Jane Austen - Freeform, Mechanic!Darcy, Sadness, slowest of burns, tragic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2019-02-08 21:08:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12873057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifelesslyndsey/pseuds/Patchouli
Summary: He’s curious as to what Darcy needs to do for half a month in Bum Fuck Midwest. He’s curious and worried because she doesn’t answer his calls on the fourth day, or the fifth, and Tony doesn’t actually deal with separation well, okay? He’s that puppy.





	Separation Anxiety

**Author's Note:**

> just a little history as to Why Darcy Is The Way She Is. Guys. It's sad. It's pretty bleak. I'm not gonna lie. I wrote this almost before I wrote ANYTHING else for this series. I just kinda sat on it for years to post.

When Pepper informs him that Darcy’s requested two weeks off, Tony isn’t sure what to make of it.  He can function without her, _honestly Pepper he’s an adult!_ It’s just...That’s a long time. That’s half a month. That Darcy needs to be elsewhere. Maybe, he thinks, if it were a vacation. If she was going to the Bahamas, or Italy, or his house in Malibu (that he’d have been happy to offer). But it’s not a vacation. Because no one books a ticket to Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin for _vacation_.  And there’s no hotel reservations within a fifty mile radius of the airport under her name. Or a hundred. He _checked_.  So obviously, he’s curious. He’s curious as to what Darcy needs to do for half a month in Bum Fuck Midwest. He’s curious and worried because she doesn’t answer his calls on the fourth day, or the fifth, and Tony doesn’t actually deal with separation well, okay? He’s _that_ puppy. 

 

He shouldn’t follow her, but he can’t seem to  _ stop  _ himself. She hadn’t even told him. Hadn’t even said goodbye. And that’s not right. When she hadn’t come in for three days, he’d gotten a little worried, and called Pepper. Only to find out that Darcy’d taken two weeks off for family. Family that he’s never heard of.  Darcy has never spoken of any family.  _ Ever _ .  Her SHIELD file had her listed as adopted and nothing else. Redacted, probably, but that isn’t surprising. Darcy was  _ doing  _ the Head Redactor of Shield and he’s seen the fond way Coulson looks at Darcy. He’d have made anything she didn’t want in there dissapear. 

  
  


It’s concerning. He has every right to be legitimately concerned. He’d do this (stalking) for any of his friends.  GPS tells him she’s in Byron, Wisconsin, for whatever reasons. So Tony goes there. He has to take his private jet as far as he can, and then a commuter plane sixty miles farther because the little town has no commercial airport.  

 

What it  _ does  _ have is seven bars, two churches, and three stop lights. And Darcy, he reminds himself, his reason for coming at all. 

 

Finding her is easy.  He asks around. Small town like that, nothing really escapes anyone. “Hi!” He greets the greasy gas station attendant with a wide smile. “I’m looking for a young woman.” He doesn’t say girl. Doesn’t want to  _ look  _ sketchy. Sketchier than someone stalking their exes personal assistant. Hm.  “Twenty-something, blue eyes, brown hair. Great body. She---” 

 

“You’re looking for Darcy?” The man asks, clucking his tongue against the gap in his teeth. “Well I reckon she's’ at Dirty Lou’s place. Been awhile since she’s blown into town, but she must be doing alright for herself, what with sending them pretty nurses Lou’s way. Always knew she’d take care of her Uncle.  What you want with her?” 

 

“She’s a friend,” he assures the man, though he seems disinclined to believe him. Tony pulls out his phone, and flips through the silly pictures of he and Darcy. He skips past the one he’d had JARVIS freeze frame, where they’re sitting upside down on the couch, feet in the air, tossing popcorn into their mouths, and chooses something a little more tame. Office party, she, him, and an awkward looking Bruce squished between them in the frame. There’s lipstick all over he and Bruce’s face, bright red and Darcy-esque. She’d called it Facebook worthy. 

 

“Dirty Lou’s got a shop up on Hallow and Oak,” the man tells him finally. “ His house will be around back. Darcy’ll be there, kicking up a storm no doubt. You seem like a nice fella, don’t pay no mind to Lou. Ain’t right in the head much these days. Things getting mixed up. I think that’s why Darce doesn’t come around much. Man keeps calling her Anna. It’s enough to make a grown man cry.” 

 

Tony doesn’t know what any of that means, and doesn’t ask. Dirty Lou’s is an Autobody shop, geared toward restoration.  If the glossy black and white photos on the wall are any indication, he did good work. There are even a few of Darcy, dressed in dirty coveralls, welding a wrench like a fairy wand, but with oil smudged on her cheek, instead of glitter.  

 

“Tony,” Darcy says, honest surprise coloring her voice as she rounds the service counter. “Implant or bug?” 

 

Not _what are you doing here_. Not _how did you find me_. She jumps past surprise, indignation, hostility, and straight to acceptance. Tony likes that about her.   
  
“Neither,” Tony tells her, smug in his honesty. “You’re Stark Comm is JARVIS-wired..” 

 

Darcy eyes him suspiciously. “I left my Comm at home.” 

 

“On your dresser, I know.” That’s basically admitting that he’s been in her apartment, so she should appreciate the flow of honesty here. “But your Stark Comm is cloud-linked to your phone.” 

 

Darcy stares at him for a long minute. “Clever.” 

 

She’s never called him smart. Never called him genius (just billionaire philanthropist play boy and good lord when will he live that down?). But she does call him clever.  It makes him feel weird, warmed up from the inside out. “I try.” 

 

Snorting, Darcy lets him inside. “No you don’t,” she argues, and Tony expects an insult, or something suitably mockin. “You don’t have to try. You’re just that clever.” 

 

It lacks the cutting tone it could hold, comes out oddly fond and soft. Tony stares at Darcy for a long moment. “Why are we in Wisconsin?” 

 

“I’m here to see family.” He follows her outside, across a junk ridden lot, to a paint-peeled back door. The house is small, worn but clean.  It’s lived in, in a way very little of Stark Towers is. The counters are faded in spots where they’ve been scrubbed to roughly, scratched with thin lines where cutting boards weren’t used. “You’re here because you’re nosey.” 

 

“True.” 

 

Before she can say anything else, a man enters the kitchen. “Anna doll,” he says, with a merry grin on his face. He thinks she’s Anna, Tony recalls. Who’s Anna? Just before Tony can ask, the man swoops down, and pinches Darcy on the ass. 

 

It’s enough to set a few bad-touch warning bells off in Tony’s mind. He must make a noise, but Darcy shakes her head at him, mouth thin and grim. 

 

“Uncle Lou!” Darcy snaps sharply, before composing herself. “I’m Darcy, Uncle Lou. Not Anna.” 

 

The man blinks at her, eyes clearing. “Darce! What are you doing here? Do you need a ride to school?” 

 

Darcy is silent for a long moment, before she takes the man by the hand and leads him through the other door. Tony follows, and finds himself in an overstuffed living room, quaint and cozy. It’s wall-to-wall shelving, filled with books and pictures and little chachkis. There are more pictures of Darcy; she’s wearing a welding mask in one, sparks flying around her, but he can tell by her sloppy, crooked bun, it’s her. He wants to steal it, and shoves his hands into his pockets. 

 

“I’m going to catch a ride with Tony, okay? I’ll see you after class,” Darcy tells the man, pressing a quick kiss to his forehead. “Carlita is coming over later. She’ll make you dinner. Be  _ nice _ , Uncle Lou. No throwing garlic bread, or tripping her on the rug.” 

 

“Mind of it’s own, that rug,” Lou says, leaning back in his fat, squashy arm chair. He’s out within minutes, like old people are wont to do.

 

“Come on.” She grabs Tony by the arm and pulls him toward the front door. “I want to leave before Carlita comes. She doesn’t like me.” 

  
  
  


They’re take a beat up pick-up to a shitty diner, on a shitty corner, in shitty Wisconsin where they’re served decent coffee. Darcy is quiet through her first cup, and half way through her second. Tony doesn’t push. 

 

“Uncle Lou raised me.” She pauses, enough time for Tony to press, but he doesn’t need too. The first words have spilled, and stains like these only spread. “He’s not my real uncle. We’re not related in anyway. Hell, I’d never met him until I was seven or so. Don’t know if my mother ever had either.” She grins a little, and rubs at the lipstick mark on the rim of her mug with her thumb. “Phil took a lot out of my file, but some of it never made it in. Not many know how I ended up with Lou.” 

 

Tony takes that as his queue to ask. “So...how did you end up with him?” 

 

“My mom sold me to him.” 

 

It’s horrible, the images the words bring to mind. “He  _ bought  _ you? What kind of man buys a seven year old.”

 

“The good and the bad,” Darcy tells him, steely. “Lou’s the good. My mother sold me for three thousand dollars, a 1986 Chevy nova, and a TV set. Everything Lou had to his name, short of his auto shop.” She laughs, a dry and dirty sound. “My mom would have taken less, but Lou wanted to buy me out right. Not rent me.”

 

“Your mother---” 

 

“ _ Tried _ , but Lou bought me on my debut trip to the corner, so to speak.” She shrugs, like avoiding such horrors is no big thing. Tony’s....Tony feels sick. “He was the best thing to ever happen to me. He loves me. Raised me like the kid he never had. Gave me the world, or what he could afford of it. I never wanted for anything. He even scrimped and saved so I could go to this fancy private school.  My first seven years in this world weren’t so bright, but...Lou made it right.” 

 

“Lou...Lewis.”  Tony laughs. “Darcy Lewis.” 

 

“It’s better than Alicia Johnson,” Darcy tells him, and her voice falls flat. “That was my name, before Lou. He let me pick a new one. I was very into Jane Austin.” 

 

“Isn’t that kind of heavy reading for a seven year old?” 

 

“My mom left me at the library a lot. Free baby sitting. I like to read.” 

 

“Why Darcy? Why not Elizabeth?” 

 

“Elizabeth was a twat. Mr. Darcy....” She pauses, biting her lip in a way Tony knows  _ means  _ something. Something he should appreciate; a sign of trust. “Darcy learned what it was to be humbled. But...it was more than that.  In the book, Mr. Darcy is portrayed as the antagonist. He’s portrayed as the mean spirited, often aloof man. But in reality, he wasn’t. He knew more than most people realized, and he did good by what he knew. He could have done better though, could have been better. And that’s what Elizabeth really taught him.  To do better.” She shrugs again, though her shoulders are tight. “I just wanted to be better than Alicia Johnson. Because no one wanted Alicia Johnson. So I became Darcy Lewis, and things got a whole lot better.” 

 

“Lou wanted Alicia Johnson.” 

 

“Lou wanted to save a girl a very bad time,” Darcy tells him, with a tired smile. “And he did.  I’m not all torn up by my childhood Tony.  I don’t have mommy or daddy issues. I’m not so bitter to think that just because my mother tossed me away, that no one will ever want me.” Tony doesn’t really thinks that’s true and he can’t escape the way it cuts into him. Folding her hands over the table, she purses her mouth. “Lou taught me that love can come in a lot of forms. The waitresses at this diner, they use to baby sit me on days Lou couldn’t bring me to the shop. They did my hair, and painted my nails. Made me cookies. They loved me.  Just like Lou’s older sister Rita loved me, in spite of myself. Just like I love Jane, and Steve and Bruce---” 

 

“You loved Jane like you loved Steve and Bruce?”  

 

Darcy grins then, just a small thing. “Nah, I don’t fuck my bosses.” 

 

He thinks about making a joke, reminding her that  _ he  _ isn’t her boss. 

 

“I’ll pay to transfer your uncle to the best facilities in New York,” He braces himself against the argument. Money is a thin blade, between friends, or whatever he and Darcy are. People often refuse it, for pride. But the thing is, money often means more to them, than it does to Tony, who has more dollars than good sense.  

 

Darcy  _ doesn’t  _ argue. “Yeah okay,” she mumbles, doesn’t mention paying him back. Tony thinks she knows he’d refuse anyway. That he’d be offended by the very idea. “Thanks Tony  It’s hard, you know? Seeing him like this? Having him look at me like he does, tell me he loves me, try and kiss me. He thinks I’m his wife; she died before he met me, but he doesn’t remember that. I don’t think he remembers me much at all, when I’m not around. Alzheimer's, dementia, Parkinson's; old age hasn’t done him any favors. I’ve been paying local nurses to look in on him.” 

 

“There was a picture of you in his garage,” Tony notes, sipping his coffee. He steals one of Darcy’s cheese curds. She lets him; there was a time he’d have slapped his hand. “A few actually, but this one you had a wrench...” 

 

“Oh! Lou was teaching me how to change oil,” Darcy explains. “He set up half the garage for me you know? It was his idea, to stash the cash I brought in from it. Mostly he did restoration, but the other side of the shop was for quick oil changes and brake jobs. In the summer, I’d hole up on my half, dusk to dawn. Started when I was twelve or so. We had enough to cover my first year of college by the time I started, didn’t cover.” She shrugs, laughing a little. “Took a while. Oil changes don’t bring in much. But when Uncle Lou showed me the numbers...I almost couldn’t believe it. But...I guess a hundred thousand dollars isn’t much to you, eh?” 

 

“It’s impressive,” Tony tells her, because it is. “Hundred G’s ?At twenty bucks a pop,---” 

 

“I only charged fifteen. I was only fourteen myself, at the time, and uncertified or insured. I needed something to get people to come in. Other than, you know. Everyone knew what I was working for. ” 

 

“Alright. At fifteen dollars each, that’s roughly...six thousand, six hundred and sixty oil changes. You worked three months out of the year for four years. That’s about one-hundred and forty oil changes a week, or nearly 30 a day. An oil change takes at most 20 minutes. You had to be putting a good ten hours in, five days a week. That’s pretty impressive.” 

 

“Something like that,” Darcy agrees, with a little, pleased smile. Tony’s never seen that smile before, and decides it’s his. It’s for him.  “But the savings account had a decent interest rate, and I worked the occasional weekend during the school year, and I’m sure Lou threw some in, so...it wasn’t always that bad. I got a few scholarships, but I didn’t qualify for financial aid since Lou owned his own business.”

 

“No no, not bad at all. Bad-ass, yeah. You put your ass through college, Darcy. Not many people can say that.” 

 

“Just the first year,” she replies, her cheeks tinged a fresh, new shade of pink. Tony’s never seen that either; it’s his too. “Ivy league’s are kind of a bank breaker. It’s probably better I didn’t hang around.” She makes a face then, like she swallowed something gross. “Although now that I’m thinking about it; I wasted a hundred grand for nothing.” 

 

He’d forgotten she’d dropped out after her first year with Foster. She’d fallen into SHIELD’s grip. . She was only twenty-one; she should have been in college still. “Do you miss it?” 

 

“College? Yeah, kind of. I mean, I like learning, but I don’t need a campus for that. And...I use to think I needed it, to get anywhere in life, but. I’m Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark Industries, personal assistant. I have SHIELD level 3, code red clearance. I know the Avengers! I know Tony Stark.” The way she says it, his name after the Avengers, like he’s more important, it makes him glow.  “If I were still slaving away at college, I couldn’t say all that, now could I? No...no I made the right choice. College was cool and all, but it wasn’t Tony Stark cool.” 

 

He narrows his eyes. “Well now I know you’re just humoring me.” 

 

“A little,” she admits, with another little smile. “But you’re pretty cool. You’re not bringing down my game or anything, at any rate.” 

**

 

Tony stays the full two weeks with Darcy.  He’s stayed in worse places (hello, cave of terror).  He helps Darcy in the shop, watches in abject amusement as she fixes a transmission, oil smudges painted across her face like war paint. She’d offered Red, a short burly man who seemed to run the place in Lou’s absent, a weekend off. 

 

“What?” She grumbles at him, pushing fly-away hair from her face. “Seriously, what?” 

 

“You never told me.” He takes the wrench out of her hands, puts a 3/8ths in it’s place for the next step. “That you could do all this.”  Her car competence honestly has him half-chubbed in his pants. If he wasn’t already fucking smitten, he thinks this might have done it. 

 

She eyes the wrench, like he might have handed her the wrong one. “I mean. You’re Iron Man. You build robots and AI’s and---and---” She huffs. “It’s just cars.” 

 

“Nothing is just anything.” He holds out his hand for her to drop two bolts into. “You’re good at this. Take the compliment.” 

 

“I grew up in this shop,” she mutters, cranking the wrench with the kind of deft movement that smacks more of muscle memory than anything else. Seriously, Tony is  _ hard _ . “What else was I gonna do?” 

 

“I grew up in a lab,” Tony muses, handing her a socket wrench extension. “I get it. Nature vs Nurture.” 

 

She laughs, half a smile curling her mouth. “I don’t think that’s what that means.” 

 

“You’re good at everything you do.” That is...That is not what Tony meant to say. He was gonna make a joke. Possibly a dirty one. It wouldn’t have come out so fucking  _ earnest _ .  She shoots him a hard look, smile falling away. “No, no. Seriously. You’re -- You’re not bringing down  _ my  _ game, at any rate.” He holds out his hand again, and she hands him the extension. It isn’t what he meant to say, but now he just...He really needs her to  _ know _ . “You’re really - Darcy. You’re awesome.” 

 

“I know.” 

 

“I don’t think you do.” He grabs her face, tilts her chin up gently so she’ll stop looking at the transmission and look at him. “You are killing it, kid.  You think Pepper’s always out of the country? She hardly had the chance before she took you on. You’re practically running the company home base on your _own._ I don’t think you realize how amazing that is. You’re twenty-one, kid. You’re practically a baby in this game, but you’re _killing_ it. And you still...Taking care of ...Me. The Scientists. All of it. You just...Everything you do. Taking on Fury. The money for R&D. Making sure I do my shit. _All of it_. You’re the best.” _You’re the best thing that’s ever happen to me_ , he doesn’t say but it’s goddamn close.  “Also you look hot in coveralls. Seriously. I have a boner and everything.” 

 

A sharp, shocked little laugh bursts out of her, but he’s not sure he’s ever seen her smile like  _ that _ . “You’re not so bad yourself.” When she reaches out to take the next socket, she doesn’t let go of his hand. “Thanks for coming, Tony.” 

  
  


***

 

True to his word, Tony has Lou Lewis in the finest medically established resting home in New York, a trendy loft in upscale Manhattan, with a view of the city and almost as many amenities as Stark Towers. He donates a hundred thousand dollars to the Institute of Alzheimer's research as well, and puts it in Darcy’s Name. He has it, she’s earned it, and after hearing her story, Tony wants to feel like one-hundred thousand dollars can means something. 

 

Darcy grins, about a week later, the small one Tony calls his own, as she slides an invoice across the table for him to sign. The donation is there, in bold black and white. Neither mentions it, and for some reason that makes Tony feel like a bigger sap. Especially when she ruffles his hair before gathering up her papers and leaving without a single word. 

 

Tony thinks about her mother. A woman willing to give her away. He doesn’t bring it up right away. He does, however, hunt down her mother. Lydia Johnson, 37,  _ deceased _ .  She died three years after leaving Darcy with Lou. Heroin overdose, with a history of rehab and drug related charges in the interim. Tony follows the paper trail.  Lou did  _ right  _ by Darcy, more than Darcy said or maybe knew.  Lydia was arrested for child abandonment within six months of leaving Darcy in Wisconsin.  All at Lou’s behest, who seemed to have some friends in good places.  It takes some finagling, because it’s been eleven years, but it isn’t hard to dig up Lou’s bank statements. It’s speculation, but Tony would bet money that he paid Lydia’s court fees so that she’d sign Darcy over  _ legally  _ into his custody.  Formal adoption at eleven, Alicia Johnson became Darcy Lewis on March 13th, two weeks after Alicia Johnson was found not guilty of criminal negligence of a minor. 

 

He doesn’t know how to approach the subject, but he can’t sit on it either. “Darce,” he says, the next time they find themselves doing nothing.  She’s sprawled out in his den, barefeet tucked up under his thighs as he browses research projects and she skims through Pepper’s emails. “I looked up your mother.” 

 

“No.” 

 

And that’s that. “Okay.” 

 

“I don’t want to know,” she adds, but it comes out smaller. “I  _ never  _ want to know.”

 

“Okay.” 

**Author's Note:**

> world of mommy issues, no matter what she says.


End file.
